


Unlikely Partners in Crime

by fangirlingacrosstheuniverse



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Honestly what even is canon, Young!Sarah Jane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-08-01 21:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16291886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlingacrosstheuniverse/pseuds/fangirlingacrosstheuniverse
Summary: Sarah Jane Adventures AU. Maria Jackson is the new girl at the prestigious Bannerman Prep, a boarding school in Ealing. Her roommate is the enigmatic and strangely antisocial Sarah Jane Smith. But where does Sarah Jane go every night? And why does Maria see strange lights in the sky? And just what are the teachers hiding in the basement?





	1. First Impressions

"...Bag, phone, map of campus... Yes dad, I'm sure I have everything I need." Maria Jackson listed for about the five hundredth time, by her count.  
It was her first day at the prestigious boarding school, Bannerman Prep, and her dad was even more nervous than she was. Which didn't take much, given that Maria wasn't nervous at all. Apparently, changing schools three times in as many years desensitises you to the traumas of starting a new school. This would not come as a surprise to most people, but to Maria's dad, Alan, this was very shocking and, in fact, room for yet more worry about the state of his daughter. In his mind, the fact that she didn't seem to mind changing schools (again) , was Very Bad and A Portent of Bad Things To Come.  
"Are you sure you want to do this? There's that small school in town, and you could go there during the day and come back at night. I could leave earlier in the morning and get time off in the afternoons to come and see you after dinner. You could let yourself in, and you'd probably enjoy the chance to get some homework done without your old man interfering." Maria fixed a patient smile on her face and pulled her bag out of the car boot. Though she was old enough to drive and did in fact have her own car (a present from her mother and her new boyfriend, as a "Congratulations for starting your new school, sweetie! We'd love to be there, you know we would, but Ivan's busy with work, you know how it is...", her dad had insisted on driving her to the school because, quote unquote, "Well, it's not as if you're allowed to keep it on campus anyway, right? And besides, it's traditional for the parent to drop off the teenager at their fancy new school. Haven't you ever seen an American high school movie?"  
Honestly. Maria loved her dad, but he was a bit weird sometimes. Though that was the job of all teenagers, really; to call their parents weird.  
"Yes, dad. You're obsessed with them. Remember?" He laughed.  
"Just remember, Maria, you have to make an enemy of the popular girls by being too wholesome and refusing to bitch about people, and you have to end up dating either the school heartthrob  (who's also on the football team) or the cute geeky guy who everyone secretly wants to date. Excuse me?"  
This last bit was directed to a passing teenage girl who was wearing the school uniform. Maria realised what he was doing and tried to stop him, but it was too late. "Excuse me!" He called again, seemingly oblivious to Maria's frantic signals to stop. Finally he got the girl's attention. Continuing to ignore Maria, he called out cheerfully, "Excuse me, my daughter-" At this he grabbed Maria and pulled her in front of him, where she promptly turned red and tried to disappear. "My daughter, Maria, is new today, and she needs some help finding her way around. Could you, maybe...?" The girl hesitated, though she was clearly in a hurry.  
"Sorry, but I'm really very busy. I have things to do, you know..." With that she turned and ran off, not looking back. Alan and Maria looked at each other. "Well," Alan said. "That was a bit rude, wasn't it? I wonder what her problem is." By this point, Maria just wanted to be gone. "Yes, dad, but it was fine, she's probably just busy. And anyway, I can find my own way. I've been here before, remember? For orientation day? You know- a whole day, dedicated to learning how to find your way around? You may have heard of this."  
"Right. Yes. We don't want you to be late."  
He held out his arms for a hug. Maria clung to him; now that the time was here, she wasn't sure she wanted to leave either. But she kind of had to leave soon or she never would. She pulled away from the hug with a (fake) lighthearted laugh. "Well, I should go now. Can you pop the boot for me?"  
Ten minutes and a few swear words later, Maria was standing with her suitcase, overnight bag and backpack, all of which were filled with an assortment of clothes and schoolbooks in no particular order. She hugged her dad quickly, said she loved him one more time, pretended not to see the tears forming in his eyes and turned to leave.  
"Maria?" She turned back to Alan. "Yeah dad?"  
"Just... Take care of yourself, alright? And remember, you can always ring me if you need me." Maria smiled. "I know, dad. Don't worry, I know."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Maria Jackson. J-A-C-K-S-O-N. I was told I would get a room number and a timetable?"  
She had been in the surprisingly bland reception of the otherwise almost palatial building for over ten minutes now, trying to wrangle a room key out of  the apparently stone office lady at the counter.  
"Do you have a note signed by your head of house?"  
Maria looked at her incredulously. "I just got here? I haven't had time to-" She was interrupted by a girls voice saying,  
"Are you Maria Jackson?" Maria spun around, desperately hoping it was someone coming to save her from this tedious hell. Her apparent knight in shining... school uniform, was a girl about her age, with dark skin and hair. The girls uniform tie was crooked and her hair was in a high ponytail. She stalked up to the counter, incidentally bringing Maria's attention to her incredibly long legs.  
"Hey, Miss, Dad just sent me to help the new girl find her way around." The office lady levelled a glare at the other girl that would have burned a hole through anyone else, but the other girl (and Maria really needed to find out her name) barely blinked. The two had a silent showdown for what seemed like several hours, before the receptionist finally caved and handed over an information pack and two keys on a lanyard. The girl snatched them up and gestured to Maria to leave. Maria followed her out, glancing back to see the receptionist had already gone back to typing on the computer.  
Once out of the reception area, the girl stopped walking and turned to Maria.  
"Right. Sorry about that; Mrs Brown has a tendency to drag things on for way longer than they need to be, for no reason other than she hates kids. My name is Rani, by the way. Rani Chandler. My dad is the Principal, so the receptionists are all paranoid that I'll tell on them if they make trouble."  
Maria blinked, trying to take in this flood of information.  
"Thanks, then. I'm Maria, but I guess you know that already."  
The girl-Rani-grinned. "Yeah, I do. Let's check what room you're in. You're in Grade Eleven, like me, so you're in Bannerman Block."  
At Maria's confused look, she chuckled and elaborated. "Because this is a primary school as well as a high school, the wings are all weird. Basically, the primary school kids get the new building that looks like a cross between a school and a hotel, while the high school kids (us) get the old building. Which is good, in that we get our own bathrooms, but it's really drafty in winter. Grades 7 & 8 are in A Wing, 9 & 10 are in B Wing, and 11 & 12 are in Bannerman Wing, which is on the floor above everyone else, cos we can be trusted to be so far away from the teachers. Apparently." Maria grinned weakly. She was incredibly confused, and she hadn't even found her room yet. Rani must have noticed her confusion, because she stopped talking and hugged Maria. "Sorry. I know this can be a little confusing for someone who's not used to all of this. It does make sense, I promise. It just takes a little while. That's why they suggest you arrive a couple of days before term starts; help you settle in, etcetera. Anyway, room number." She checked the key, handing it theatrically to Maria as she did so. "And your room number is-"  
She stopped, mid-sentence, still holding the key. Maria looked at her, confused. "So," She prompted awkwardly, "The room number is...?"  
Rani blinked, then looked at her, looking like she was waking up from a dream. "Oh! Yes the room is number is 13. It's just that..." She trailed off again. Maria sighed. It had been a long day, and she honestly just wanted to get to her room, put her stuff down, and go to sleep. "It's just that... What?"  
"Oh, nothing. It's just that your roommate..."  
Maria sighed again, expecting another pause, but this time Rani continued unprompted.  
"...Is a bit odd." Maria waited, expecting a bit more information. Seeing this information wasn't forthcoming, she decided to change the subject.  
"So... Where's your room?"  
Rani blinked at her again, clearly noticing the subject change. "Um. I'm across the hall from you. Number 14. My roommate is a girl called Kelsey Hooper. She's alright, but we're not really friends."  
Before Maria has a chance to say anything, Rani keeps talking. "But anyway, we should get you to your room."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Ten minutes and two flights of stairs later, Maria is standing outside of her new room.  
"And here it is. 13 Bannerman Wing. Your home-away-from home. Here's your key-"  
She draped the lanyard over Maria's neck.  
"Aaaaand here's your info." She placed the information pack on top of Maria's suitcase, resting against the suitcase handle. "Don't forget, I'm here if you need anything. Breakfast goes from seven to ten tomorrow, so I'll probably see you there." And with that, she was gone, striding off down the corridor, presumably to help some other confused newbie.  
Well. Maria thought. She was...odd. For someone who stood around talking to me for almost twenty minutes, she sure left quickly. I wonder what that was about?  
Rationalising it away as Rani having a lot of work to do, she opened the information pack. The top sheet inside it was a sheet with details about the room, with a photo of the layout and a short description of it. She looked further down the page and, sure enough, there was the word Roommate followed by a name. Maria looked at the name, trying to imagine what kind of person it belonged to. Sarah Jane Smith. Would she be... friendly? Unlikely, given what Rani had said. What did weird mean, anyway? Rude? A Hippie? A Satanist? What?  
Well, she thought. Only one way to find out. She opened the door slowly, looking around as she did so. There didn't seem to be anyone there, which she found a little odd. Where else would her new roommate be? She walked further into the room, still looking around cautiously. There were two single beds, one on each side of the room. Only one half of the room looked lived in, with things on the bedside table and pictures on the wall. The bookshelf above the bed was full too, with textbooks and a couple of novels. The most interesting thing, though was what was on the wall. Rather than posters of boy bands or paintings of the ocean or whatever, what was on the wall was what looked like a bunch of... newspaper clippings? Maria put her suitcase next to the other bed, and her overnight bag and backpack on the bed, before going over to get a closer look. On closer inspection, most of the articles were about governments keeping the existence of aliens secret, or about strange deaths or disappearances in the area. She was just reading an article about how a shady government organisation called U.N.I.T was hiding the existence of aliens with the help of a humanoid alien called the Doctor. It was actually really interesting.  
"What are you doing?" Maria jumped what felt like three metres in the air. Shit. Her new roommate would choose now, when she was leaning over her bed staring at the wall like some complete weirdo, to walk in on her. Absolutely typical. She shot back to her own bed like she'd been shot out of a cannon, before turning and looking at the girl- her new roommate, Sarah Jane Smith.  



	2. Wait, what?

"What are you doing?"   
Maria jumped what felt like three metres in the air. Shit. Her new roommate would choose now, when she was leaning over her bed staring at the wall like some complete weirdo, to walk in on her. Absolutely typical.   
She shot back to her own bed like she'd been fired from a cannon, before turning and looking at the girl- the girl who'd been rude to her and her dad in the carpark- her new roommate, Sarah Jane Smith.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Ah, sorry, I was just... looking around." Maria trailed off lamely, wishing she was anywhere other than here. Sarah Jane didn't seem impressed.   
"I don't like people going through my things."   
Maria shrunk into herself more. Hopefully, if she just made herself as small as possible, this entire situation would resolve itself and she could forget it ever happened.   
"Sorry," she repeated, looking at her feet. The other girl just harrumphed and swung her bag onto the recently vacated bed. Maria waited for her to say anything, but the conversation was apparently over.   
Such a great introduction to the person she would be living with and seeing day in, day out, for the next couple of years.   
Her dad would be so disappointed by the fact that her roommate didn't seem interested in the role of 'quirky and adorable sidekick/best friend. Maybe she could try out for the role of 'Draco Malfoy'- in other words, archenemy.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Maria didn't remember going to sleep or even being tired, but the next thing she remembered was waking up to sunlight streaming through the curtains. She lay in bed for a while, trying to remember where she was and what was happening.   
She had started her new school, hopefully made a new friend in Rani Chandler, and met her new roommate... shit.   
She groaned and rolled over, desperately trying to ignore the cringy first meeting with her new roommate. Maybe if she just lay in bed all day, she'd never have to get up and face the world (her roommate). She snorted into the pillow. Sure. If she just stayed in bed for the next couple of years, all of her problems would be solved. That's how life works, right? Right?  
After a few minutes of wallowing in self pity, Maria thought she should probably get up at some point. Dammit.   
Aside from everything else, Maria was not a morning person. She never had been. Half the reason she'd wanted to come to this boarding school was because all her classes would be in the same building she slept in- that way no matter how late she woke up, she could get to class mostly on time. In theory. She rolled over, desperately trying to escape the morning breath that had accumulated in her little huddle of blankets. Her eyes blinked open blearily. The other bed in the room was made, and there was no sign of her roommate anywhere. Phew. One disaster averted until later. Maria checked the time; 8:37 am. If she got up now, she'd have time for breakfast.  
Twenty minutes and a very half asleep shower later, Maria was dressed (minus shoes; it's a Sunday) and studying the map she was given with her other school supplies, trying to find the way to the coffee. Sorry, cafeteria. "Ok. So if I turn left here, then go down this flight of stairs, then turn left again here-" She was interrupted rather forcibly when she crashed into someone who was walking in the other direction.  
"Whoa," said the other person, reaching out to steady Maria. "You may want to calm down there. Are you Maria Jackson, by any chance?"   
Maria looked at the person she'd bumped into. He was a boy, around her age, with slightly messy hair and skin around the same colour as Rani's.   
She was about to confirm that she was, in fact, Maria Jackson, when the boy spoke up again. "My name's Clyde Langer. Are you Maria?" He held out his hand to shake. Maria took the hand he offered, and he enthusiastically pumped it up and down a few times. "Yep, that's me. Why?"   
Clyde smiled widely. "I'm a friend of Rani Chandler. She said you may be lost. This is a pretty big school, and the map's completely bloody useless."   
Maria smiled in relief.   
"Oh thank God. I was starting to think I'd never find anything. This place is huge!"   
Clyde laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, it is a bit of a maze. We're due to meet Rani in the cafeteria soon, so we should get going. Come on." He started off down the hallway, with Maria following behind like a lost puppy.  
They got to the cafeteria, walking into a scene straight out of one of Alan Jackson's favourite American high school movies. Maria looked around sleepily, trying to locate Rani and/or coffee. There were a few students scattered around, but the rest were probably taking their last chance to sleep in before term started.   
"Clyde! Maria!" Maria turned around to see Rani waving them over. She was at a table near the wall, half hidden by a pot plant.  
They made their way over to the table, threading their way through the maze of tables and half asleep students until finally they reached the table. "Morning guys! Food's over there if you want some."   
Maria grunted and looked up, her social and awake skills having apparently been used up interacting with Clyde. Rani had better not be one of those chirpy morning people, or this friendship was never going to work out. "Clyde, go help Maria find food. Also, probably coffee."   
Maria let Clyde practically drag her over to the food line. Clyde pressed a coffee into her hands, and she stood by and sipped it as he loaded his tray with a huge pile of food. By the time they got back to the table, Clyde with a veritable mountain of eggs, bacon and toast and Maria with three strips of bacon and a bagel, her coffee was half gone and she was feeling slightly more alive.   
By the time Clyde had eaten most of the food on his plate (how, Maria had no idea) Maria had finished her coffee and was inhaling bacon strips. When Maria emerged from her bacon and coffee haze, she noticed Clyde and Rani looking at her.   
"What?"  
The other two exchanged a glance that she couldn't read.   
"Nothing."  
They said in unison. Maria wasn't buying it, but she didn't press the issue.  
"So," Rani said, changing the subject. "Do you have your timetable? We can help you go through it." Maria rummaged through her bag, finding her timetable under her room key. "Yeah, I have it." Rani grabbed it from her hand, uncrumpling it from the ball it had somehow become overnight. Rani examined the timetable, then set it down on the table. "That," She said, pointing a (recently manicured) fingernail at the first block of lessons. "Is your first week of classes. Classes run on a ten-day cycle, repeating every two weeks. This is English; this is science, history, etc. You have double periods for your elective classes and four study periods per cycle. There are no classes on the weekends, though there are clubs and sports teams that meet on Saturdays if you join them."  
It was at this point Maria was distracted by the sight of her roommate walking in. Sarah Jane Smith was fully dressed with her hair brushed, which Maria thought was just showing off. Her new roommate walked calmly over to the breakfast food and grabbed a muffin and a coffee. As she went to leave, her gaze swept the room. Her eyes found Maria and narrowed into a glare, before she huffed and left.  
"Maria?"   
Oh right. Rani was still talking. Maria looked at Clyde, who, having apparently followed her line of sight, was staring off into the direction Sarah Jane had gone.  
"So," Clyde said, holding his coffee in front of him. The mischievous look in his eyes made Maria feel faintly nervous. Judging by the warning look she shot Clyde, Rani felt the same way. "Tell all. What's she like?"   
Rani made a hissing noise that sounded like 'Clyde." but she didn't stop him. Maria was confused.   
"What's who like?"   
Clyde rolled his eyes like it should have been obvious. Maybe it would have been if she had known him longer. She was quickly realising that most of what Clyde said made little or no sense to outsiders.   
"Your roommate? Sarah Jane Smith? AKA the weirdest person on campus?" Maria blinked. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it wasn't gossip.  
"Clyde." Rani snapped. "Stop it. You shouldn't spread rumours."   
Clyde shrugged. "Like you're not curious, Miss 'I'm going to be a journalist when I grow up.'"  
"What rumours?" Maria asked, cutting off a Clyde/Rani argument that she had a feeling would go on forever if not quickly prevented.  
Clyde grinned, and she had the worrying feeling she'd played right into his hands.   
"Well, first there's all the usual rumours- she's a lesbian, she's screwed the entire football team, she's sleeping with one or more of the teachers...."  
Maria was kind of impressed.  
"Those are the usual rumours?"  
Clyde gave her a look that said 'Well, duh.'  
"But then, there are the slightly more...unusual ones." He paused long enough to grab Maria's bagel and take a bite.   
Maria gave him a mild death glare, but the Nirvana-like look on his face as he chewed told her he was ignoring her.   
Swallowing, he continued talking. "Apparently her old roommate went crazy. Something about a talking crystal and a metal dog. Also, people have reported seeing, like, weird lights and stuff around her room at night, and a couple of people reckon she had something to do with that explosion at the Bubbleshock factory."  
Maria was skeptical. She had seen the news reports; they said something about a gas main erupting, though that didn't explain the people who had seemed possessed, wandering the streets with Bubbleshock in hand.  
"How would a teenager explode a factory and make all those people walk around like that?"   
Clyde looked sheepish.   
"Well, I don't know, but Kelsey reckons she saw her car driving away from the explosion. And she was always going around, asking questions about Bubbleshock- the recipe, the factory, whether anyone had any 'strange side effects' from drinking it- that sort of stuff."  
He trailed off when he noticed both girls were looking at him skeptically.  
"What?"  
Maria and Rani exchanged an eye-roll and an expression that said, quite clearly, "Boys."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
That evening, after a lengthy tour of the school from Rani, complete with sarcastic commentary from Clyde, Maria was back in her dorm room, sans one roommate. To the school's credit, it was less of a single room and more like two or three connected rooms, one of which was the ensuite she had used earlier. This was one of the things that had initially drawn her to the school-besides the sheer awesomeness of living in a castle, she loved the fact that she got more than one room. Even if she had to share with Sarah Jane Smith.   
Deciding to leave the problem of her roommate until later, Maria started the somewhat tedious job of unpacking.  
She hung her fresh new uniforms in the wardrobe, put the selection of T-shirts and jeans that she had brought in the drawers, and pulled out her smaller bag of personal stuff. There was a box of tampons, (in theory she would have a chance to get more before she needed them), three novels, her phone charger, two posters and a Buffy The Vampire Slayer alarm clock. She wasn't normally the kind of person who got things like this done quickly, but she especially didn't want to be stuck doing this when term started- that and she didn't need her new roommate thinking she was anymore of an idiot than she already did- which would probably actually take quite some doing, come to think of it.   
"Oh. You're here."  
Fuck. Speak of the devil.


	3. Friends

She wasn't normally the kind of person who got things like this done quickly, but she especially didn't want to be stuck doing this when term started- that and she didn't need her new roommate thinking she was anymore of an idiot than she already did- which would probably actually take quite some doing, come to think of it.  
"Oh. You're here."  
Fuck. Speak of the devil.  
She looked up from her suitcase to see a surprised roommate framed in the doorway.  
"Um. Yeah. I guess I kind of live here now. Look, I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. Hi, I'm Maria. I'm your new roommate. Wanna be friends?"  
She held out her hand hopefully. Please don't hate me please don't hate me please don't-  
Her train of thought was rapidly derailed by her new roommate reaching out and shaking her outstretched hand and... smiling? It was slightly strained, but it was a smile nonetheless.  
"Hi. I'm Sarah Jane Smith. I'm sorry about yesterday; I wasn't extremely keen on losing my single person room, and I've been under some stress recently. I hope you'll forgive me."  
"Oh, of course." Maria said quickly, eager to start over.  
This time Sarah Jane's grin seemed more authentic, though she still wasn't exactly an open book. Maria latched on to the possible conversational topic as quickly as possible, trying to prevent the newly formed friendship from becoming awkward.  
"So, uh. Is this your first year here as well? If you've never had a roommate before. I mean, um."  
Her voice trailed off nervously. To her relief, Sarah Jane didn't seem offended.  
"No, this is my second year here, but I kind of...lucked out last year and managed to have a room all to myself. It was nice, but I guess it couldn't last."  
The smile lighting up her face belied the possible offensiveness of her words.  A small silence fell, and Maria looked away, fingers fiddling with the edge of her necklace.  
"So...what about you? Why move schools for your final year?"  
Sarah Jane continued, obviously reaching a bit. Maria couldn't blame her though; she wasn't exactly a conversation expert either. And she supposed small talk was par for the course when making friends.  
"Oh,  my dad's job mostly. We move around a lot. And I wasn't super attached to my old school or anything, so...  
And I figured it was a good chance to change some subjects. I really hated biology, so now I'm doing English, history, beginners French, and chemistry. So... what are you studying?"  
Sarah Jane's expression seemed more open now, and, faced with a civil conversation with her roommate, Maria felt cautiously optimistic. "I'm doing English, psychology, French, and society and culture. I think we'll be in the same French class; not enough people chose it, so they combined them. Maybe... we could study together sometime?"  
Maria felt reassured that Sarah Jane seemed a little uncertain as well. At least she wasn't the only one. And it would be nice to have someone she could practice French with.  
Who was she kidding, there was no way she would ever be brave enough to practice her French with someone who actually spoke the language.  
"Sure. But I haven't done a lot of French, cause, you know, I've been moving around a lot, so you probably shouldn't expect anything like fluency."  
Sarah Jane laughed a bit, and Maria smiled too.  
Things were looking up.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Maria taped the last picture to her wall and lay back in the bed in satisfaction. She'd printed out a bunch of the pictures that had been on her computer forever to make herself feel more at home at her new school. It felt good to have everything unpacked, with her belongings spreading to fit the space.  
Sarah Jane had gone to talk to the head of the science department; apparently there was an issue with her little brother's homework or something. She had left in a bit of a hurry, giving Maria the impression her brother caused a number of problems at the school.  
Maria had decided to stay and finish unpacking. Term started tomorrow and she figured once classes started she'd be too busy.  
Having unpacked, though, she wasn't sure what to do. She could seek out Rani and Clyde, but she felt like she'd had enough socialising for the day. She briefly considered cracking open the book and starting on the syllabus, but... she really didn't want to. One more day of not studying wouldn't hurt, right?  
Maybe she should do some exploring.  
She'd passed the communal bathroom on her floor on the way to breakfast that morning, and she knew she'd have plenty of time to get lost on the way to class and find her way around the school when term started, so she decided to explore the dorm room.  
Sarah Jane had explained that, because the school building used to be a giant manor house or something, it had a million random little rooms. Most dorms apparently had a cupboard or something at least. A couple of lucky girls even had their own small bathrooms. They had lucked out as well, apparently; they had a fake wall that led to what used to be a sitting room. It contained a bricked up fireplace, and a nice big window. Apparently when Sarah Jane first got the room it was gloomy and dusty, but over the course of the year she'd brightened it up and made it her study room.  
Maria stood in front of the wall, and laid her palm on the spot Sarah Jane had pointed out. The wallpaper pattern over that spot changed slightly- every other little flower was blue, but this one was yellow. She pushed down, and the wall section of wall slid away.  
She grinned in satisfaction; she'd always wanted to find a secret passageway. She put her heaviest textbook into the gap, then stepped through. Sarah Jane had assured her the gap would remain open, but she'd seen movies; she knew those doors had a keen sense of dramatic timing. She and her dad spent many a happy hour throwing popcorn at the telly whenever a horror movie character did something silly like investigate a strange noise or let a secret passage close behind them. Now she was the one living in an old manor house; this was no time to develop bad habits.  
The first thing that struck her was how bright the room was. She knew Sarah Jane had cleaned it up, but she hadn't expected it to this extent. She suspected a little procrastination had gone into this, but maybe Sarah Jane was just that organised.  
The wall to her right had a large bricked up fireplace, at least a metre and a half across. Maria wiped a hand on the brick edge, and noticed a surprising lack of dust. The whole room was lit up by a large square window, taking up most of the opposite wall. The morning sun shone into the room, illuminating the small layer of dust stirred up by Maria's presence. No matter how tidy Sarah Jane kept it, it seemed even she couldn't completely eliminate the decades of neglect.  
A long corner desk took up the rest of the room. It was covered in textbooks and random ornaments. Here, as well, Sarah Jane had pinned up random articles. Headlines like 'Little green men? Aliens throughout history' and 'Aliens? In Downing Street? It's more likely than you think' jumped out at her  from the walls. She stepped into the room to look more closely.  
It wasn't a massive room, and the desk took up a surprising amount of space. As did the bricked up fireplace. Still, she was pretty excited. A real live secret room! It was one of the coolest things she'd ever seen. Definitely what she'd hoped for when she first saw pictures of the school.  
She picked up a strange pink shell and rubbed along the edge. It was strangely smooth, even for a shell. The deep shade of pink and spiral caught her eye, and she leaned over the desk to see it in the sunlight. The longer she studied it, the more detail she could see. It seemed to have flecks of white, and an almost pearlescent sheen. She turned it in her hand, and the spiral seemed to move independently. She looked closer, admiring the light reflecting off the shell, turning the room around her pink. The light drew her in, and she couldn't look away. Deeper and deeper, she fell into the spiral. She felt like there was something under the surface, like an illusion, and if she just looked a bit closer she would see it. Just a little closer...  
Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep!  
An obnoxious beeping broke her concentration, causing her to fumble the shell. For some reason, she felt her heart racing, like she'd just run a marathon, and her palms were damp with sweat. Feeling shaky but unable to put a finger on why, she put the shell back on the desk. As she did so, she noticed a modern lamp, obviously put there by Sarah Jane for nighttime studying. It was weirdly nice to see.  If not for that it could seem like this room hadn't been touched by humans for years. Looking more closely, she saw a number of papers with writing on them, obviously Sarah Jane's writing. A few obvious study materials were scattered around- a list of French verbs, a maths formula, an essay with a 20/20 across the top in red pen. Other things were more unusual, presumably personal research- a list of dates that didn't seem to correspond to any sort of world events, a spiral of words not in a language she recognised (though Maria would be the first to admit she wasn't a language expert by any means), and a small pyramid shape made out of a shiny purple metal that seemed to emit a weird buzzing noise. Maybe Sarah Jane had done a lot of travelling? She had an amazing variety of papers and objects from faraway places. While Maria didn't recognise some of the things she saw, she was pretty sure that string of symbols were Arabic, and those were...some sort of strange...headphones, maybe? with Chinese letters.  
This seemed like such a nice room; hopefully Maria would be able to convince Sarah Jane to share some of it. She quite liked the idea of having their own room, that only they could use. It was kind of like a clubhouse, except with more studying. She was pretty excited for this year, now; she'd always wanted a secret clubhouse. She wondered if it would be too soon to try and organise a secret handshake with Sarah Jane...  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Hi Luke, please turn off the Bunsen burner."  
Sarah Jane was on her laptop, talking to her little brother on Skype. The same brother who'd had an issue with his homework. Maria was half asleep, curled up in her bed, listening with half an ear. She'd assumed Luke, Sarah Jane's brother, had the usual sort of problem nine year old boys do with homework- not handing it in, or doing it badly, or something.  
Apparently she was way off the mark.  
"Yes, I know Miss Glass asked you to research a science experiment, but she didn't want you to recreate Tesla's death ray... yes, I'm aware that she asked you to look to history for examples... no, that doesn't mean you should try to recreate the most dangerous experiments you can..."  
Sarah Jane sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers.  
Maria got the distinct impression she'd had this conversation before.  
All the way over on her bed, she could only hear one half of the conversation, and she had to admit she was curious about the source of her roommates annoyance. It had taken Sarah Jane over three hours to discuss her brothers science situation with his teacher. Apparently her brother had some objections to the way she'd handled it.  
Maria wasn't really an expert on child geniuses, but it did seem like trying to recreate one of the largest and more terrifying innovations of the 20th century with the contents of a primary school science lab (and almost succeeding) was a bit extreme. And she would have thought taking such a dangerous thing away from the child was reasonable, but said child seemed to disagree.  
"Yes, Luke, I know you found Tesla's journal... and that he claimed it was perfectly safe... but he was not nine years old at the time, Luke."  
Sarah Jane's voice softened.  
"No, I'm not angry. You just have to be a little more careful. Don't take unnecessary risks. Take care of yourself, and I'll see you tomorrow."  
She paused, listening to his response and Maria saw her smile affectionately. Clearly she wasn't too upset with her little brother. Maria was glad about that for some reason; the kid seemed to have good intentions.  
"Goodnight, Luke."  
And for the first time Maria heard a reply; a little boy's voice.  
"Goodnight, Sarah Jane."  
She fell asleep with a smile on her face, looking forward to the next day.


	4. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day of classes. Homework, classes, and is Sarah Jane Smith up to something?

The first day of school dawned bright and early.

Maria checked the time, groaned, and shoved her face back into the pillow. . She'd set her alarm so she would have enough time to lie in bed for a bit, do some makeup (just the basics- she didn't really bother from day to day, but she liked to establish a precedent), brush her hair, and eat breakfast with her friends before the start of term assembly. Unfortunately, as often happened when she was a bit nervous, she'd woken up earlier than planned. 

Squinting through sleep-blurred vision, she glared at the deceptively bright sunlight trickling in. Much too bright for five in the morning.  
In reality, the weak morning sunlight was barely enough to illuminate the room, but at that time in the morning, it may as well have been a flashlight into Maria's eyes.

Holding the pillow over head, trying to fall asleep again, she heard a noise.  
She lay still, trying to catch a hint of the source of the noise.   
After a moment, it came again, but quieter this time. It sounded like a fanfare of some kind. Straining her ears, Maria thought she heard a voice of some kind, but she couldn't be sure.   
Rolling over, her eyes locked on the fake wall of the adjoining room. It appeared to be open a crack, and a soft orange glow came through the gap. Maria stared blearily at it; it was too early for this shit.   
The warmth of her bed lured her back towards her dreams, her mind falling back into sleep. She had enough time to get at least a couple more hours sleep before she had to get up, and she planned to make the most of it.  
—————————  
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.  
Maria flailed at her alarm clock, knocking it off her nightstand in her hurry. God she hated the sound of that alarm. Unfortunately, that was why it was so effective.   
Leaning out of bed, she finally managed to turn it off, then lay back with a thud.

She felt her something flop over her face and groaned. Her hair, which was a force of chaos at the best of times, was at its most forceful in the mornings. It somehow covered her entire pillow, as well as defying gravity and sticking straight up. She definitely should have braided it before bed.

As she dragged herself out of bed, her eyes fixed on the fake wall to the adjoining room. Did she have a dream about that room? She looked at it for a moment longer, but the memory slipped from her grasp.

She looked over to the other bed, suddenly remembering that she may have disturbed Sarah Jane with her scrabbling, but relaxed to see the bed made with no signs of an occupant.   
The other girl must have left earlier- Maria appreciated not being woken. She wanted to start her first day at a new school well rested.   
—————————  
She came out of the bathroom half an hour later dressed, made up, and hair somewhat tamed. Checking her watch, she noticed she still had a bit of time before she had to be at breakfast. Not looking where she was going, however, she bumped the side of Sarah Jane's nightstand with her hip, hurting herself and knocking everything on it to the floor.   
She swore and clutched her hip (and why was pointy furniture always hip height anyway?), staggering over to collapse on her bed.

She pulled up the skirt of her uniform down to examine her hip. The skin was slightly reddened, and the soreness of the area told her it would bruise soon. Typical. Great way to start her first day of classes. Looking across the room, she sighed. She'd knocked the nightstand entirely over. Luckily, nothing seemed to be broken, or she'd feel really bad.

Still favouring her bruised leg, she returned to the nightstand, picking up the small lamp, photo frame, and notebook that had been knocked off.

Thanking her lucky stars that Sarah Jane didn't keep more stuff on her nightstand, she noticed the picture was in an old fashioned frame. As she fixed the back to allow it to stand on its own, she noticed it was a picture of a man wearing a long scarf, with his arm around Sarah Jane. Possibly her dad? Interestingly, the image had the sepia colouring of old photos.   
After a moment she shrugged and returned everything to the nightstand, making a mental note to apologise if anything was damaged or missing, and left the room for breakfast.  
—————————-  
"... and students are expected to complete with due diligence all tasks set by the school..."

Maria sighed, making eye contact with Rani and very deliberately rolling her eyes. They sat next to each other in the uncomfortable chairs provided by the school for assemblies (though why they would choose such uncomfortable chairs for such long assemblies she wasn't sure). It just went to show that no matter how fancy the school, the crappy plastic chairs remained the same.   
Maria tuned out the assistant/deputy/whoever was talking as they droned on about expectations of the students, particularly the senior students. Honestly, start of term assemblies were so boring. Nothing had even happened in the school year yet, so there was nothing to cover except the generic welcome to a new year stuff. 

And cover it they did; it felt like every single teacher had something to say, and Maria swore a couple of them had gone twice. 

"And now welcoming our school principal, Mr Chandra, to the stage. Mr Chandra will say a few words..."

Eugh.   
Wait. Chandra- why was that name familiar? Rani's dad! Seeking confirmation, she made eye contact with Rani, who nodded and made a 'what can you do' face. Maria sat back in her seat, feeling bad for Rani. It had to be awkward having your dad at school with you, especially with everyone knowing who you were.

She loved her dad and all, but she would probably go crazy if he was the principal of her school.

Apparently Rani's dad also liked giving long speeches. Maria felt her eyes glaze over again, almost drifting off to sleep. She came back to herself suddenly, when Rani nudged her.   
Vaguely, she realised they must be wrapping up.

"This brings us to the end of our assembly today. One final thing-"   
The school gave a quiet but collective groan-  
"We have a couple of new teachers with us this year. Please welcome Mr Blakeman, the new assistant principal, and Mr Jeffery, the junior science teacher.""  
Scattered applause sounded through out the hall, and the mentioned people put their hands up and waved.   
Maria tried not to stare too obviously- the two men were strong contenders for the fattest people she'd ever seen!   
While she watched, the older looking man let out a loud fart. This proved to be too much for the watching school children, and a wave of giggles swept the room. The new teacher took it in his stride though, laughing and waving. He even bowed slightly.   
Maria was impressed despite herself; most of the teachers at her old school wouldn't have been able to laugh off something like that. Maybe this new school wouldn't be too bad.  
————————-  
Over the next few hours, that sense of optimism was slowly squashed. She'd always liked school- the feeling of learning and understanding more of the world, and broadening her horizons- but this was a little ridiculous.

She shook her notebook at Sarah Jane as the two sat in their room before dinner. Between classes and dinner they had time for private study or extracurricular activities. Personally Maria didn't see how they'd have time for anything other than study, given their work load.

"Homework for every class and it's only the first day! This is insane."

Sarah Jane smiled in commiseration.   
"Yes, I know what that's like. And trust me; I know from experience it's easier to keep up than catch up. And I'm sorry to say I don't think it's going to improve any time soon."

Maria sighed.

"You're right, it's nothing I didn't expect from my final year. Just... geez, hopefully they're trying to intimidate us a bit to start with, so we develop good study habits? I can dream, right?" This last bit was said with an air of desperation that was only mostly feigned.

Her friend smiled at her reassuringly.   
"I'm sure you'll be fine. There's more important things than grades, anyway. There's a whole world out there, waiting to be explored."

Maria tilted her head to look at Sarah Jane. Something about the way she said that sounded... odd. Unable to put her finger on it, and agreeing with the sentiment regardless, she sighed.  
"I guess you're right. Thanks."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Maria contemplating the trials and tribulations of high school and Sarah Jane contemplating... whatever it was she spent her time thinking about. 

Maria knew she should start on her homework, if only to make it seem less intimidating.   
She decided to give herself five more minutes of lying in bed. Then she'd get up.   
The silence was broken three minutes later by an abrupt knock on the door, causing Maria to jolt slightly.   
Sarah Jane jumped up from her desk, where she appeared to be actually doing something productive, writing in some sort of notebook. The enthusiastic knocking continued until she reached the door.   
Curious, Maria sat up on her bed.

The source of the knocking turned out to be a small boy, probably around eight or nine years old.

"Sarah Jane! The new part time science teacher is amazing, I think we're going to be friends! He said he's starting a science club for that meets every few days. And we went on a tour of the new technology block. It has cutting edge facilities and we get to use them starting next week! You were right, school is fun.”

Maria was impressed by how fast all of that came out. She guessed this was Sarah Jane's little brother, Luke. She had mentioned he was very interested in science and technology.

Sarah Jane was smiling fondly. "I'm glad to hear you enjoyed yourself, Luke. And I spoke to your teacher about getting you some harder work, as long as you make sure to prove your understanding of the basics. You'll get quizzes every fortnight, to be completed and handed in by the second Friday." Luke was nodding, eyes shining. Maria thought she'd never seen a kid so excited at the concept of more school work.

Sarah Jane waved her hand in Maria's direction.   
"And this is my new roommate, Maria Jackson. Maria, this is my brother Luke."

Luke nodded, walking across the room to Maria and holding his hand out to her. Maria took his hand, trying not to laugh at the solemnity rarely seen on a nine year old's face. "It's good to meet you, Maria," Luke said, shaking her hand exactly three times, then letting go. Maria smiled at him. He was oddly formal, but his big optimistic eyes and small stature made her think of a puppy. "It's good to meet you too, Luke," she returned politely, still trying not to laugh. Something about this kid’s manners felt…a little off, as if he’d learnt social norms from a book he’d found somewhere. Possibly a slightly old fashioned book, at that

Said kid stayed for a while longer, babbling something about neutrino rays and gamma radiation that went way over Maria’s head before leaving for the library, once more flawlessly polite. Apparently the school had recently acquired- that was the word he used, ‘acquired’- a new collection of encyclopedias he wanted to look at. Sarah Jane and Maria returned to their companionable studying, with Maria even managing to get a good start on her homework before they took a break for dinner.

After dinner, Maria rang her dad to update him on her first day of classes. He congratulated her on not getting into any feuds on her first day, and sympathised about her homework load. Unfortunately, he'd also reminded her of her obligation to her other parent; her mum would also be expecting an update. Probably. It was always difficult to know what her mother did and didn't remember. Chrissy practically made a career out of obfuscating, Alan Jackson had said numerous times, increasingly less affectionately over time. Maria tried not to let the growing animosity between her parents get to her, but it was harder than she’d ike to admit sometimes.

This led to where she was now; phone balanced on her shoulder as she lay in bed, making agreeable noises every time her mum stopped for breath. "And then Ivan said he preferred chartreuse, if you can believe it! But I put a stop to that right quick, I did, I said-"

Maria tuned her out. She did love her mum, but Chrissy Jackson was exhausting at the best of times. She waited until it sounded like her mum was winding down (though possiblly she was just out of breath), then said "Okay, sorry mum, I have a fair bit of homework to get done. I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

They said their goodbyes, and Maria let her phone fall onto the bed.

Phew. The call log said they (well. Chrissy.) had been talking for nearly fifty minutes, so Maria felt justified in her tiredness. Not that talking to her mother was necessarily a chore, just that… it sort of was, honestly.

She dragged herself through brushing her teeth and braiding her hair, before collapsing onto the bed, managing to switch off the light and mumble a 'goodnight' to Sarah Jane before sleep knocked her over the head and dragged her into dreams.

She was too out of it to notice the fake wall opening, or Sarah Jane going through the gap, or the (hurriedly shushed) fanfare, or the soft orange glow that was abruptly cut off by the fake wall sliding shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Sorry about the long wait on this one! Life has been... busier than expected, and I haven't had a computer, so I've been writing on my phone. I'm hoping to update once a month at least, so I can get into a routine. I'll also be writing other stuff in the meantime, so look out for that too if you're interested. Big shout out to Mystic Lover of the Fairytale for constantly reminding me to update! The plot should start to kick off after this chapter as well.
> 
> Edit 2/2/2019:  
> Edited to add/change a couple of (relatively minor) things. Will update with Chapter 5 in the next couple of days.


	5. This is fine, probably

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some weird stuff is happening around Maria's new school... but that's probably going to be fine. Right?

"Euhh, what is this?"

Clyde asked rhetorically, poking his fork into something suspiciously green and fuzzy. It was Tuesday morning, and Clyde, Rani and Maria were eating breakfast. Rather, they were trying to. Maria was mostly safe with her bagel, but the strawberries she'd also grabbed were looking alarmingly squishy and unpleasant.

Overall, with the early morning and the suspect food, the three teenagers were rather subdued. It was hard enough to feel positive about the second day of the school year (when the novelty of new classes and friends wore off) without adding rotten food into the mix.

At that moment Sarah Jane arrived with wet hair, biting into an apple with a satisfying crunch.

"Maria, there you are. I was just trying to find you to tell you the bathroom is free if you need it."

The disgruntled group looked at her in dismay. 

"Where did you get that?"

Maria asked, feeling a little hard done by. The apple her friend was holding seemed completely free of blemishes.

Sarah Jane blinked at the apparent non-sequitur.

"I went to visit Luke in the junior building and grabbed an apple from his tray, why?"

Maria frowned. "Huh. It's just that there's no fresh food here at all."

To illustrate her point, she poked a strawberry, grimacing as it squelched.

Sarah Jane blinked. "That's... odd. Aren't there health and safety regulations?"  
Before anyone could comment, she shrugged.  
"Well, I need to go to the library quickly before class. Hopefully lunch is better?" And with that, she left.

The remaining group sat in silence, poking at their food dejectedly.

"Well. So that was the infamous roommate, then?" Clyde asked with his best class clown smirk, clearly angling to make a smart-ass comment.  
Glad for an excuse to stop poking at her plate Maria sat back in her chair, fixing Clyde with a stern look.   
"Yes, that was her. And I'm not sure what everyone has against her, honestly. Yeah, she was a bit standoffish, but we're friends now. She's been really nice. I even met her little brother!"

Clyde sighed dramatically. "Ah, there goes my hope of being regaled with exciting stories during this trying time. Hey excuse me, sir?"

This last was directed towards a passing teacher. Maria couldn't remember his name, but she was pretty sure it was one of the new teachers.

"Sir? How am I supposed to eat this?"

The girls made eye contact behind Clyde's back. Rani rolled her eyes at Maria, and Maria tried to hide a giggle.

Clyde was waving around a fork with a particularly gross fuzzy piece of food to demonstrate his problem. The teacher looked down absently, presumably still half asleep, then grabbed the fork from Clyde's hand and squinted down at the awful looking gunk.

He scraped it a little, then handed it back. Clyde looked at it in dismay; it was still clearly covered in fuzzy mould.

"There you go, just scrape off the bad bits." Clearly considering the situation closed, the teacher ambled away.

Thunk.

Clyde dropped his head onto the table and groaned dramatically.

Maria was inclined to agree with the sentiment.

\----------------

The bell rang as Sarah Jane slid into her seat next to Maria in English, one of the only classes the two girls shared.

"Cutting it a bit close, aren't you?"

Maria stage whispered as Sarah Jane organised her notebook and pens.   
Even this early in the term she knew about the infamously strict senior English teacher, Mrs Willow. Rumour had it she'd once given out five detentions in one lesson, all for tardiness.

Maria felt fortunate that she had always enjoyed English; hopefully that enjoyment would stand her in good stead throughout the next year. Mrs Willow's first action of the class-going through the roll and checking everyone had done their homework, then calling on people randomly to share their thoughts- only served to emphasise this. Luckily Maria had been warned about this habit by Sarah Jane the night before, so she'd done her work properly and made sure she had her notes spread on the desk for easy access. 

As she did so the overhead lights flickered, the classroom briefly going dark. Before the teacher could do more that mutter in irritation the lights turned back on with a harsh buzz. As if to make up for the brief moment of inattention, the rest of the lesson passed in a blur of note taking, everyone struggling to keep up with Mrs Willow's fast paced lecture.

————————

The food at lunch was better, but not by much. The main issue there was the fresh fruit and vegetables available; all of them looked like they'd been picked from a compost pile. The bread and pasta, however, seemed to mostly be fine.   
"This school is really going downhill," Clyde gesticulated with his fork. "First there's the food, and the ridiculous homework - did I tell you I have three essays due?" He paused long enough for the girls to nod in weary agreement. This was the third time they were hearing the same rant.   
"And these new teachers! I had the new science guy for chemistry today and he confiscated my sandwich!   
I ask you; what is the world coming to, when a guy can't even eat in peace?"

The girls sighed at Clyde's histrionics, and Rani gave him a Look.

"Clyde, we've never been allowed to eat in class. It's not exactly a new rule, and it's really not indicative of some sort of conspiracy."

The kids all sighed. They'd signed the petition going around to do something about the food situation, but it looked like there wasn't a lot more they could do until the teachers actually bothered to step in and do their jobs.  
As they'd done with breakfast, the three (and presumably the rest of the students) ate what they could and scraped the mouldy leftovers into the bin. 

Maria had the sinking feeling they would be eating plain bread and meat for the foreseeable future. 

"Maria?"

The girl looked up, blinking at the sight of Luke Smith. Rani looked on with interest, while Clyde was distracted rooting around in his bag for something. 

"Hey, Luke," she said bemusedly, "What's up?"

It was Luke's turn to blink. "Nothing is 'up'. I was wondering if you'd seen Sarah Jane? She said she'd meet me, but I haven't seen her - what are you doing?"

Maria followed his line of sight to where Clyde was carefully pouring salt and vinegar chips onto a slice of bread. Rani and Maria's attention diverted to Clyde who, blissfully unaware of the confusion he was causing, wrapped up his chip sandwich and started on another one. Rani cleared her throat.

"What?" 

He asked, seeing everyone looking at him. "Is something on my face?"

Luke, with what Maria was coming to appreciate as his trademark ability to get straight to the point, asked, "What are you doing? That isn't a traditional sandwich filling." 

"Hey man, don't knock it till you try it. Here, you can have one if you want." He offered his wrapped sandwich to Luke, who took it with the air of someone who's unexpectedly been handed a ticking bomb. "Ah... thank you." Luke remembered to say, a beat too late for politeness. He carefully stowed the sandwich in his backpack which, Maria noticed with amusement, was far too big for him. 

"Who is this kid, anyway?" Clyde asked, seeming to suddenly realise that Luke was significantly younger than them. 

"This is Sarah Jane's little brother, Luke."

Luke solemnly shook hands with both Clyde and Rani. "Nice to meet you."

'What?' Rani mouthed at Maria, who shrugged in response. Clyde, of course, couldn't leave well enough alone. 

"Brother? I don't remember hearing about a brother."

"He was adopted a few months ago." A cold voice cut in, just as Luke was opening his mouth to say something undoubtedly tactless. The group turned to see Sarah Jane herself had walked up while they were distracted. 

"...Ah." Clyde suddenly realised he'd pushed a bit far in asking for private information. Searching desperately for a change of subject, his attention alighted alighted on the rolled up paper in Sarah Jane's hand. "What's that?"

"Nothing. Just a map of the new technology block. They've been leading guided tours through there - our year group is going next period. Now, come on Luke. Let's go find Mr Jeffrey for that lunchtime science club." 

As soon as the two Smith's left, Rani berated Clyde for 'being a nosy git.' Maria was so entertained by their argument, she forgot that her roommate had dodged Clyde's implied question; why did Sarah Jane need a blueprint of the new technology block?

—————-

'There are sixteen classrooms with broadband connections but anything dubious your adolescent minds may be drawn to, I have locked out." 

The group of teenagers followed behind Mr Blakeman, who was leading the tour through the new science building, like apathetic ducklings. 

The only one who was paying any attention as he droned on was Sarah Jane, who was furiously writing everything he said on her ever-present mini notepad; apparently she'd been asked to write an article for the school newsletter. She'd mentioned wanting to be a journalist, and Maria was impressed by her dedication. The new building did seem to have an impressive range of facilities, but it was painfully obvious that it had been designed by someone who didn't know what school students were like. The two in one chairs and desks that could be adjusted and rotated on several different axis fit the 'Modern Classroom Aesthetic' Maria assumed they had been going for, but spinning chairs would definitely be a distraction more than anything. The pristine white walls were begging to be covered with inappropriate doodles and graffiti, and the wide open spaces with minimal walls were going to be hell on teachers trying to run separate classes. 

Not to mention -

"Anyone else smell that?" She asked quietly, trying not to attract the ire of the monologuing teacher.

Clyde wrinkled his nose dramatically. "It smells like batteries or something." 

He was right; the metallic smell was overpowering. 

"It's probably all the computers they have. They're all new, straight from the factory." Rani stage whispered back. 

A loud humming cut off Clyde's reply, and the lights flickered and went out. The blackout served to be sufficiently distracting for Blakeman to (finally!) stop talking. 

"Stay out of trouble while I discover the source of this blackout," the irritated teacher almost had to shout over the giggles and conversation that had broken out the second the lights went out. 

One of her classmates, who she recognised as Rani's roommate Kelsey, was glaring down at her phone. "Hey, what gives? My phone's dead. God, that's so lame. How am I supposed to text James?"

Trying to ignore Kelsey's need for drama, Maria frowned down at the 'emergency services only' light flashing on the screen of her own phone. "My phone's down too. Guess the blackout isn't just here." 

Rani frowned. "That's odd. Maybe lightning hit the power lines."

"What, and the phone towers?" Clyde cut in sarcastically. "Probably our fancy new tech block messed up the power somehow."

Maria shrugged, and glanced over at Sarah Jane. The other girl was frowning, her face lit up by a red flashing light from... some kind of smart watch. 

"Your watch isn't connected?"

"Yes, but that's impossible. This watch never turns off." She muttered, clearly preoccupied.

"Why, does it run off batteries?"

"Yes," Sarah Jane murmured. "Something like that." Still frowning, she pressed another button, and the watch screen lit up. 

A staticky buzz sounded overhead, and all three teenagers looked up in alarm as sparks ran along the edges of the fluorescent lights. The buzz cut off, and the lights flickered back on. 

Mr Blakeman came huffing back down the stairs, occasionally letting out loud farts. Clyde snickered, and Rani stepped on his foot.

Blakeman gave Clyde a dirty look. "You. What's your name?"

Clyde shrugged, still trying to appear calm. 

"Clyde Langer." The teacher frowned. 

"Troublemaker. Noted."

Before Clyde could come up with another sarcastic remark, the bell rang. Rani and Maria exchanged relieved looks behind Clyde's back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this chapter did not want to be written! Major writer's block. Hopefully I'm through the worst of it now, sorry this chapter took so long. This is the first of three parts of the episode 'Revenge of the Slitheen'. I've got a solid outline for how the next couple of chapters will go, so they hopefully won't take too long. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!


	6. Little Green Men... Seriously?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit! Aliens! This... actually explains a lot.

"Luke's made a friend in his science class. It's good to hear he's settling in."

Sarah Jane remarked out of nowhere during their after dinner down time that night.

"That's good." Maria paused, trying to find the right words. "Is Luke... does he have many friends? His conversation skills seem a bit... rusty, is all."  
Sarah Jane's hands stilled from where they'd been folding clothes; it seemed she, too, was searching for the right words.  
"Luke has always been special- he requires constant mental stimulus. Until recently, just after we adopted him, his needs haven't allowed him to attend a regular school."  
Hopefully his social skills will improve as he makes friends with people in his age group." She smiled a bit weakly. "Well. That's the theory, anyway." 

Maria tried to look encouraging, but now she was curious about something else.

"So your parents adopted him?"

"My parents adopted me a few years ago, and they decided to adopt Luke as well a few months ago. Because I'm eighteen already, I'm listed as another caregiver in the household. While we're away at school, I try to look out for him as much as I can."

"Wow. That sounds like a lot of responsibility."

"It kind of is, but I don't really mind. And I have a lot of support from our family and the school."

"Still." Maria shook her head admiringly. "I don't think I could do that."

The conversation slowly petered our after that. Maria considered working on her assignment for English due next week, but tiredness won the battle.  
The last thing she saw before she fell asleep was Sarah Jane turning down her desk light so it wouldn't disturb her.

—---------  
"Damn, I think I forgot my laptop in the new tech block."

Rain and Maria were walking to the dorms from dinner the next night when Maria stopped walking, causing Rani to halt as well.

"Ouch. Can you get it tomorrow? It's pretty late."

Maria sighed, thinking longingly of a warm shower. "I don't think so. My English stuff is on my computer, and I have English first thing tomorrow morning."

"Well... maybe your teacher won't be too hard on you? It's only the first week of term."

Maria smiled wryly. "Yeah... but I have Mrs O'Leary." Rani winced. "Right. Yeah, I guess we'll have to grab it."

"Nah, you're okay. I know you have stuff to do, I'll be fine getting it myself."

Rani looked torn, but Maria could tell she wasn't keen to go all the way back to the new building. 

"Well... if you're sure..."

"I am. I'll see you tomorrow."  
\----------

The new building looked kind of scary at night. Something about the comparative emptiness of usually busy buildings had always given Maria the creeps.

She tugged on the door of the new building. To her surprise, it opened; she'd expected it to be locked at this time of night. 

Well, who was she to question it anyway? The school had large enough fences surrounding the property that no one was likely to just wander in, and the unlocked door certainly made her life easier. 

The eerie feeling magnified as she walked through the building, footsteps echoing loudly off the walls. Trying not to let her imagination get away from her, Maria sped up. She wasn't exactly sure which room she'd left her laptop in, but she thought it might be the conference room. 

She ducked under the table she'd been sitting at in the conference room, and sure enough there was her laptop. About to stand back up again, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone walking into the room.

Silly, she thought to herself as her heart pounded harshly against her ribcage. There's no reason to be worried, it's probably just a cleaner or something. You won't get in trouble, just explain why you're here...

But she couldn't bring herself to move. 

Okay, she reasoned. I don't want to get detention or anything, so I'll just stay here until they leave.

The footsteps stopped, and a loud sniff came from the person.

"Who is it? I know you're in here. I can smell you."

Uhhhhh what? Maria identified the voice as Mr Blakeman, but... what the fuck? 

"A little girl- fresh as a daisy." Maria felt queasy. Was this guy some sort of child molester? Who talks like that?

"She really shouldn't be hanging around here after hours. Not when I have no reason to hide in this stupid skin any longer."

Maria's breathing sped up, and she desperately tried to stay quiet. What the hell did that mean? 

A squeaky crackle came from the direction of Mr Blakeman. Suddenly the room was lit up bright blue. Maria cautiously peaked out from under the table; she could only see the teacher's shoes from where she was. As she watched, there was a sickening plop sound and a gelatinous blob with Mr Blakeman's face landed on the floor. She recoiled in shock, hitting her head on the table.

Replacing the normal human legs, was a pair of thick, green, scaly legs. 

Maria peeked around the corner of the desk, and found herself face to face with some sort of green, almost humanoid... thing, with large protruding eyes and some sort of collar around it's neck. 

"I am Slitheen!" It cried in a creaky voice. 

Heart pounding, clutching her laptop, Maria bolted for the door, slamming it shut behind her. 

"Oh, I love it when they run!" The creature cried behind her. Maria sped up, desperately trying to get the hell out of dodge.

"Maria? What are you doing here?"

"Sarah Jane!"  
Maria almost crashed into her roommate as she came hurtling down the corridor.  
"Mr Blakeman's gone crazy- and there's this big green-"  
A crash sounded behind them, followed by pounding footsteps.  
A high pitched voice came from behind them.  
"You can't escape from me, girl child. I can smell you."

Maria and Sarah Jane looked at each other.  
"You know what? We can have this discussion later. Run!"  
The girls turned tail and sprinted down the hallway.

They got to the door and slammed it shut behind them. Sarah Jane pulled out some sort of glowing lipstick that made a humming noise and Maria heard the click of the lock.

The part of Maria's mind that wasn't panicking took a moment to note that the lipstick thing was probably the cause of the unlocked door in the first place. It stood to reason that if it could lock doors, it could probably unlock them just as easily.

Sarah Jane tugged on her arm. "Come on, we need to get back to the main building. That door won't hold him for long, and we don't want to get stuck on the grounds alone at night."

Maria didn't need any more encouragement to get her tired legs working again, and the girls resumed their run towards the safety of the main building.  
\---------

The girls let themselves back into their dormroom, collapsing onto their respective beds. 

They lie there for a second, just panting. Maria had never been a big runner, and she felt like her lungs were trying to escape her chest. 

"I don't suppose there's any chance of you forgetting what you've seen today?"

Maria looked over at Sarah Jane incredulously. "Are you kidding me? You want me to just forget that there are weird green monsters in our school?"

"Not monsters. Aliens." 

Sarah Jane corrected.

"Aliens? Are you saying you've encountered these things before?"

Sarah Jane winced, clearly annoyed at herself.

"Please, just forget what you've seen today. Go to bed, wake up tomorrow, chat with Clyde and Rani, talk to your parents on the phone. Just live, Maria."

Maria shook her head stubbornly. She'd never backed down from something she considered important, and she wasn't about to start now. "I can't just leave you to fight those things on your own. What if you get hurt?"

"I know my life is dangerous, Maria. Rule one: I can't let civilians get involved."  
Maria frowned. "Civilians? What are you, some sort of space cop?"

Her roommate smiled humourlessly, and pulled a flip wallet out of her pocket. Flipping through, she silently presented Maria with an ID card of some sort.

The card had a logo on it, along with the words: Special Advisor, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.

Maria looked up, meeting Sarah Jane's gaze. "You have got to be kidding."

"I'm afraid not."

"So... it's not just a few aliens? The government knows about them?"

Sarah Jane frowned slightly. "There's a few organisations dedicated to dealing with encounters, but they're not exactly government run. Aliens have been coming into the public eye recently, but it's still not exactly common knowledge. Most incidents involving aliens have been explained away by organisations like UNIT and people's common sense." Her tone became cynical. "People don't really want to believe in something like aliens. You'd be amazed at the lengths people will go to to ignore the evidence of their own eyes."

 

"So what were those things, anyway?"

"The Slitheen is a family, not a race. They come from a planet called Raxacoricofallapatorius. They're the sleazy con artists of the universe." Sarah Jane seemingly automatically fell into lecture mode. 

"The new tech block seemed to pop up out of nowhere, so I got a hold of the floor plans, but there was a big gap. I wanted to investigate a bit more, to figure out their plan- which is why I was there tonight. They seem to be doing something to the electricity, but I'm still not sure what their goal is. Maybe I could have figured it out if-" and she paused to glare at Maria "-if I hadn't had to rescue someone who shouldn't have even been there in the first place."

Maria wanted to distract her from being annoyed.

"You figured this all out from a gap in the floor plans?"

Sarah Jane smiled wryly. "Don't forget, I've encountered aliens before. You're right though; the gap in the floor plans on its own wasn't enough to necessitate my level of concern, but the fact that Mr Smith had been blocked from accessing the real blueprints... that was a cause for concern. No earth technology could do that."

"Who's Mr Smith?"

"I suppose I may as well show you. My cover's pretty much blown anyway."

She went over to the wall and pushed, opening the secret door. 

"Mr Smith? I need you."

A fanfare sounded, and lights flashed on. 

A flat electronic voice said "Hello, Sarah Jane."

Maria just stood with her mouth hanging open. 

"Mr Smith, I'd like to introduce you to my roommate, Maria Jackson."

"Hello, Maria." The electronic voice said.

Sarah Jane beckoned her into the extra room, and Maria followed her unthinkingly.

Okay. Aliens, space, giant secret sentient computers hiding in walls... she could deal with this. Probably.

Meanwhile, Sarah Jane kept talking to the computer. 

"Mr Smith, the Slitheen must have been planning this for a while. Can you find out who built the new tech block?" Somehow, Mr Smith's voice managed to sound mildly offended as he answered, "Off course, Sarah Jane." 

A whirring noise sounded, then a name appeared on the screen. "The name of the organisation is Coldfire Industries. Over the last 18 months they've constructed ten of these new buildings in different cities-" As he spoke a world map appeared on screen, with dots pinpointing the cities.

"-New buildings have popped up at schools in London, Barcelona, Washington, Santiago, Los Angeles, Sydney, Beijing, Moscow, Naples, and Paris. All of these cities have underground railway systems."

Now Sarah Jane looked worried. 

"Definitely not just a British problem then. Thank you, Mr Smith."

Mr Smith made an acknowledging beep sound, before shutting himself away again. 

The two girls stood in silence in the relative darkness. Sarah Jane's silence was contemplative; Maria's was tinged with panic and confusion.

"But... why?"

Maria finally asked.

"Why would they come to Ealing? Why build new blocks in schools? What's the point to all of this?"

Sarah Jane blinked slowly, determination in her gaze.

"That is what I'm going to find out."

Then she smiled wryly. 

"As for 'why Ealing?' You'd be surprised how many aliens choose England in general and Ealing in particular for their schemes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry about the wait! It's been a busy time for me. I now have a bit more of the story written as a bit of a safety net, so that should speed the next update a bit. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was much . harder to write than I thought it would be, but I'm mostly satisfied.

**Author's Note:**

> I've posted this on fanfiction.net under the name Toodamnmanyfandoms. I just realised I haven't posted it here before. Let me know if you like it!


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